


Des astres et des hommes

by adropofstarlight



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Character Death, Character Study, Drama, Gen, M/M, No Romance, Oblivious Enjolras, Pining Grantaire, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sad Grantaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3343937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adropofstarlight/pseuds/adropofstarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is destined to follow, and he knows this, and accepts it.<br/>Because when it comes to Enjolras, that is worth everything.</p><p>[In other words, Grantaire's reasons for being the way he is, and for feeling the way he does about someone who - most likely - doesn't return his feelings.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Des astres et des hommes

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever Les Mis fanfic (and probably not the last). I've been trying to write for this fandom for a while so... I hope the characterisations are all right!
> 
> The poem is Le Monde by Emile Verhaeren.

_Le monde est fait avec des astres et des hommes._  
_Là-haut,_  
_Depuis quels temps à tout jamais silencieux,_  
_Là-haut,_  
_En quels jardins profonds et violents des cieux,_  
_Là-haut,_  
_Autour de quels soleils,_  
_Pareils_  
_à des ruches de feux,_  
_Tourne, dans la splendeur de l'espace énergique,_  
_L'essaim myriadaire et merveilleux  
_ _Des planètes tragiques ?_

* * *

While Enjolras talks of building a barricade, Grantaire slowly collects a small mountain of bottles.

Uncork, pour, drink, toss aside - a cycle that never ends. Only one of the many arts of which he is a master.

While Enjolras talks of summoning the Parisians to their side, Grantaire summons up another bottle and watches him from behind it.

If nothing else, he reflects, the bottles will make good airborne missiles in a battle. Glass thrown at close range can inflict just as many injuries as a musket ball. Particularly when ammunition is limited.

But Enjolras fails to see his logic, as he always does.

"If you can't make yourself useful here, take yourself elsewhere," he blares in Grantaire's general direction, before turning back to his drawn-out plans, several curling pieces of paper placed dangerously near the candles. His eyes don't simply reflect the glow; they seem to hold it, as if within them is really sapphire blue flame, two gleaming stars. His face in the mellow light is exquisite in its contours, like a fine statue.

Grantaire tells him so.

"Anything else you have to say?" demands Enjolras, not even looking up this time.

"No. Carry on. I like hearing you talk - go on for a few more hours and I may join you at the barricade after all."

Enjolras directs a thunderous frown at his paper and says nothing. In the seat opposite, Courfeyrac smothers a snort around his flask. And Combeferre only shakes his head, blond hair falling into his eyes, with a warning smile that says,  _Grantaire, this isn't going to work today_.

He's right, of course. None of the efforts truly  _work_. Enjolras' attention only ever lingers a second upon him, and then it's gone, back to the plans, back to talk of revolution and change.

For Grantaire, the only change that matters is in the level of wine in his glass. And to his slight dissatisfaction, he notes there's hardly a drop left.

He counts the empty bottles littering his table. Ten - well, he has been sharing today, with Joly and Bossuet, who have abandoned him to join Enjolras in his work. If Grantaire remembers correctly, he may just have had three by himself, and these are the  _small_  ones, not much bigger than his hand except for their long necks.

He twirls one in his fingers and observes how the light strikes it, barely piercing through the thick dark glass. The bright beam deflects into his eyes, and he blinks. The bottle falls with a short clink and begins to roll toward the edge of the table.

Grantaire dives for it, but he isn't fast enough.

An explosion of green shards announces the bottle's fate, and the men's voices around him stop, Enjolras' included. Pity - he'd been listening to that voice, low but mellifluous like melted gold.

From the table in front, Enjolras whips around to glare at him.

"When will you ever stop with your disturbances?" he growls. "If you don't like it here just say so."

Grantaire, without standing, sweeps up the broken glass with a broom the kitchen wench provides. Upon meeting Enjolras' angry eyes he grins, a brief flash of lightheartedness.

"I do like it here," he declares, kicking a stray green piece into the pile.

And even if no one else believes him, he means it.

* * *

Later, when the tables are deserted and the respective members of Les Amis de l'ABC have returned to their homes, he's still there, alone. The kitchen wench has long given up on shooing him out; he's made his peace with her over another wine. Even though Grantaire can feel his eyelids drooping, he isn't ready to go back. Not just yet.

After a good deal of thought, he abandons his seat, moving to the chair facing the one Enjolras had occupied. Then he rests his chin on his hand and gazes reverently at it, as if the blond revolutionary is still there.

"Enjolras," he says very quietly to the empty space, as he has so many times before when wine has made him conversational. "Enjolras, I hope you're not still angry with me. I meant no harm; you know I don't. Tomorrow you'll have forgotten. Won't you? You forget anything that has to do with me."

He sighs and runs his finger along the edge of his glass, knowing full well the kitchen wench can hear him talk. But it doesn't matter. He goes on.

"Have you ever seen the way your eyes flame, Enjolras?" he whispers. "You look divine when you're angry - especially when you're angry. Like Apollo... And you don't even know it. But how can you not know? How can you not know how people feel when they look upon you? Even drunks like I have thoughts and feelings. Even I."

But the dream-Enjolras across from him sits stiffly and does not reply. There is nothing in his face that will give Grantaire the answer he so desperately wants. And the café owner is already making his way over, ostensibly to announce he is closing for the day.

So Grantaire pushes aside his chair and sets his money on the table and exits through the door, not looking back. Outside the sun has begun to set, velvety darkness slowly descending on the Musain and on the rest of Paris.

He feels unbearably tired without knowing why.

* * *

_Anything else you have to say?_  Enjolras' voice repeats in his mind, over and over, that same harsh tone of annoyance he reserves especially for Grantaire. And Grantaire, because he cannot help it, says the same thing every time.

"No."

 _Yes_.

"Carry on."

 _Never stop_.

"I like hearing you talk."

 _I live for the sound of your voice_.

"I may join you at the barricade after all."

 _I will die with you if I must_.

How else can he make Enjolras understand? How else? How can he ever say truly what he's feeling, when it will  _kill_  him to do so?

Yes, it will kill him. Either that or Enjolras will accept him as a friend. He dares not hope for more.

But even that hope has already been dashed, like a fragile wine bottle against hard wooden floors.

* * *

He's in a tavern, sitting by a window with dusty hinges and pockmarked glass, and it is early morning. The air around him is very still, so still he can hear himself breathe, so still he can hear the beer move in his cup if he shifts it.

Quiet like this is quiet he loathes. Why is no one at the other tables speaking?

A quick glance around provides the answer.

The tavern is deserted. He's the only one here. No owner, no idlers, no gamblers, no beggars. Absolutely no one. The chairs around him are arranged none too neatly around their tables, as if they'd been shoved aside by people in a hurry. There are a few damp footprints on the ground still, from someone who had evidently forgotten to clean his boots.

Grantaire knows he has no business being here alone. But he cannot work up the will to move. A small part of him wants to stay and find out what's wrong, because the entire place seems to be holding its breath, as though waiting for something -

A shot rings out.

And another.

A cry - from somewhere outside the window.

Before he's even aware of it, he has his face pressed against the glass. And his stomach plummets.

A mountain of destroyed furniture rises from the cobblestones before his eyes, almost high enough to block out the sun. It takes a moment to spot the familiar faces behind the broken chairs and splintered tables and snapped wooden planks, and that's when he knows for certain this is Enjolras' barricade.

He can hear a sob. A man sobbing.

And then the clear voice he can recognize anywhere, the one that thrills through his veins every time he hears it, ringing loud and true.

"Fire!"

And suddenly the air is filled with smoke, and men shouting, and others screaming, and still others falling.

Grantaire spies a gun lying against the side of the wall to his right, and reaches for it, intending to grab it and jump up and enter the fray with Enjolras. But somehow he can't get up, can't move. He's frozen in the manner he was a few seconds ago, still by the window, forced to watch everything as it goes on. And he can see the red flag waving, and Enjolras' coat, equally red, red as blood against the dimness of the barricade.

"Enjolras," he whispers, and then louder. "Enjolras!"

His heart stops when he looks beyond.

A man wearing the uniform of the National Guard several feet away, behind Enjolras. Rifle pointed straight at his back -

" _ENJOLRAS_!"

But Enjolras is staring at him, his eyes wide with an expression Grantaire has never seen before -

"Grantaire!"

-  _a shot_  -

* * *

"Grantaire, you fool!  _Grantaire_!"

Hands on his shoulders, shaking him roughly. His face stings as though someone's trying to slap him awake, and with a start his eyes fly open.

"Enjolras!" Bright light, and he can't see. "Enjolras, where are you - "

"You idiot - I'm right here! Now quiet down!"

Grantaire shuts his mouth, allowing his vision to refocus; sure enough, it's Enjolras standing over him, blond hair wild and looking shaken.

"You... you're all right!"

He doesn't realize he's trying to touch Enjolras' face, until Enjolras moves quickly out of his reach, leaving Grantaire's hand frozen in midair.

"What are you  _doing_?"

"I... you're not hurt, are you? That man, with the gun - I saw him - "

Enjolras takes a step back in alarm. "And you're not right in the head. You were having nightmares, weren't you? Of me?"

Finally it hits him, through his alcohol-induced daze. He's still sitting opposite Enjolras' chair, in the Musain, where the meeting had been held. And clearly, instead of leaving as he had thought, he'd fallen asleep at the table instead.

Now it's Grantaire's turn to jump up and back away, a curious warm sensation spreading up through his cheeks.

It had been a nightmare. All just a nightmare. And Enjolras - the  _real_  Enjolras - how much had he heard of it?

"Why are you here?" he asks shakily, and almost winces at how rude his words sound.

Enjolras only gives him a look that isn't as affronted as it should be. "I was informed that  _you_  were still here, whiling away your time and endangering our meeting place, so I came back to see." He averts his eyes. "It seems Bahorel wasn't far wrong."

"Ah." Despite the wine still running through his veins, Grantaire feels appropriately chastened. "I'm sorry. I was - "

"Leave it be." Enjolras pushes him none too gently to the door, where the cool night air hits Grantaire like a carriage at full speed. It's then that he realizes - it's only the two of them. Enjolras has come back for him -  _perhaps, just perhaps_  - of his own will.

At once he fully awakens, and at the same time he fully drowns.

"Enjolras," he says suddenly, and there is passion in his voice, and Enjolras' blue eyes have turned to him, more beautiful than the brightest diamonds, and there is something -  _something vitally important he has to say, just three small words, just three_  - but all he can manage is, "Enjolras, you should go."

"Now I know for certain you're not all right." And Enjolras is frowning. "I expected you to say, 'Thank you, dear, but now I must frolic all by my lonesome' and make me believe I'm depriving myself of great enjoyment. What happened to all your witty remarks? You had one too many this time, didn't you."

He understands so little. So little.

Grantaire tries for a laugh, but it isn't as merry as he intends it to be.

"You could say that, I suppose."

Enjolras doesn't seem convinced, but thankfully withholds his questions. "Well, what do you want to do now? Do you want me to leave? I'll tell you, though - I didn't spend all this time coming back here for nothing."

"If you want a drink - or anything - it's on me."

"That's all you ever think about, isn't it? Drinking?" Enjolras gives him a haughty look. "No, I don't want a drink. Forget about it. I'll walk you home - wouldn't want you to collapse on the street at night."

It's a standard insult, coming from Enjolras, but this time it sails right over Grantaire's head, because he's having trouble believing this is real. Why is Enjolras being so kind all of a sudden? And to  _Grantaire_ , of all people...

He doesn't deserve this.

Nevertheless he allows Enjolras to accompany him. If this is a dream, he might as well live it for as long as it lasts.

"How are your plans going?" he asks, just to have something to say, to break the heavy silence, but even this is met with incredulity.

" _Plans_? You've been to every single meeting thus far. Though I presume you were drunk most of the time..." Enjolras shrugs. To Grantaire even that simple gesture appears magnificent. "We should be ready in a few more days, but it seems Marius is still having trouble. I don't know what to do with him."

"Duty and desire are hard to reconcile."

"Only when they lie on opposite ends of a spectrum. But when both move toward the same end, it becomes easier. You're not defending Marius, are you?"

"I am," Grantaire answers with a good deal of nonchalance. "Men with soft hearts are always in need of defense. And I mean to save as many as I can."

Now Enjolras is watching him with an odd expression - not outright dislike, not even true disagreement, but something more like curiosity. At last he glances away.

"Well, every man to himself. I wasn't expecting you to agree."

The narrow, winding streets of Paris are almost claustrophobic in the dark, but Grantaire has walked them enough to know the way blind. And tonight a rare help has arrived. Stars blanket the sky like jewels in a woman's dress, some mere glimmering specks in the distance and others luminous and full, lanterns shedding soft light over the sleeping city.

Enjolras almost glows underneath them, heavenly and surreal.

"Beautiful," Grantaire whispers before he can stop himself.

"What?"

"The stars... If I could touch one, just one, I would."

"You would?" Enjolras looks up too. "But reaching for them and touching them are two different things - the first is possible and the second may not be. Stars are always aflame. They burn themselves. Who's to say they won't burn you?"

"It's worth it to me."

"Why, Grantaire. I never knew you were such a dreamer."

And Enjolras walks on with a short chuckle, the sound jarring Grantaire to the bone, the sight of his bright laughing face piercing him to the heart, with a pain that will never go away, with a pain that will never be understood.

* * *

_Don't fight, Enjolras. Please._

_Don't. Let someone else do it, let things be. Let it happen in the future; it will. Don't risk your life. You can be as harsh to me as you like, you can tell me you'll never ever be friends with me, you can do_ anything _. If only you'll stay._

_Please, Enjolras. Please._

_I don't want to lose you too._

* * *

He lies awake till midnight, numb.

His eyes are open and yet he dreams.

He sees a boy of no more than twelve, lanky and dark-haired with permanently wide-open eyes, sitting in the corner of a cramped room with about ten others. All of them wear students' uniforms, all of them are young, some with the appearance of  _gamins_  newly recruited from the streets. But one boy, seated in the center, commands their attention with his seventeen years of authority and noble profile. He is known to the group sometimes as Jean, sometimes as Jacques and sometimes both - though Grantaire will always think of him as simply Jean.

"Listen up," Jean says in a fervent whisper, blue eyes beckoning them closer, and young Grantaire in the corner strains his ears, trying to peer over the shoulders of the taller boys. "We'll meet at the Place du Château-d'Eau the day after tomorrow. Find me at the fountain; I'll make my speech there. Who's got the flyers?"

A few older boys raise their hands. Jean nods to them.

"Good. If you can, post them up around the city by tomorrow night. Flagpoles, lampposts, anywhere you see fit. But make sure no one finds them in your possession - especially the policemen."

"Can I help too?" Grantaire pipes up from the back, and receives a smile in response.

"No, it's fine. Everything's been taken care of. You've done a lot for us already, with all the news you've been bringing back, and I'd be happy if you could be there with the rest of us."

"Of course," answers Grantaire, barely able to contain the pride welling up in his chest. "You can count on me."

And the clandestine meeting adjourns soon after that.

"Remember who we are doing this for," Jean reminds them in parting, his tone and air quiet but sure. "For our families present and absent, for each other, for the people of France and their children, for our children who will follow. Though this seems a small step made by a small number, every step is progress. And progress is what makes all the difference in this world."

Those words, like everything else Jean tells them, Grantaire commits to memory.

Two days later they regroup. Jean is standing atop the fountain edge, blond hair golden against the clear blue sky. Never has he appeared more like a young student - and yet in his eyes is an older man, older and wiser than Grantaire can comprehend. From Grantaire's vantage point he is tall but alone, apart from the crowd. His hands are empty but his eyes are full of fire. The same pure passionate fire that links all of them together.

"Friends," he begins, voice echoing in the hush that has fallen over the square. "Friends, fellow countrymen and women. We are here today because the time has come for change. The time has come for us to recognise what we are entitled to, as good citizens of this country."

He spreads his arms wide to indicate them all. "Every one of us - every man and woman and child, everyone old and young, rich and poor - we here are all citizens. We are all a part of France, we are all her heart and soul. We bring pride to the declaration of being French. Do we not?"

Grantaire, squashed between several other boys, hears a few muttered responses that do not sound assenting at all.

"It is true," Jean answers them calmly, "that it may seem otherwise for many of us, because our lives have always appeared unchanging and dreary. But have you ever stopped to wonder why it is so?" His voice rises. "We are told it is our fault – but it is not our fault. I say,  _it is not our fault_. No matter what has been told to us, we cannot be in the wrong if we have done nothing wrong. How could we, when we have stood at the frontlines of every battle, when we have carried on honorably with our meager work, when we have  _still_ , despite every hardship and obstacle thrown at us, called in strong voices for the continued life of this country?  _We are not in the wrong_  - we have fulfilled our duties as rightful citizens of France – we have done our part – and it is France that has failed us."

A silence. A silence so profound, Grantaire can hear his heart beating strongly within him.

"France," repeats Jean. "France our mother and our guide, to whom we have pledged our unending loyalty and our myriad lives and our meager livelihoods. For her we have given everything, we are ready to lay down everything – and all we have asked in return is her willingness to listen when we are in need, her hand to lift us up and lead us to a brighter future. But has she kept her promise to us? No.

"Time and time again," he continues above a low murmur, "time and time again her government and her monarch have denied us our rights as citizens, rights with which we were born - the rights to fair treatment under the law and the same chances to advance in this world. Our opportunities and our potential have been suppressed, and it is the King who has done this, ignoring our pleas and cries for help. But he has ignored them for long enough. I say that it is now time for us to rise and reclaim what is ours!"

" _It is time_!"

The three words ripple through the crowd like a wave, carried and passed on and carried back again. And Grantaire finds himself joining them, shouting as loud as he can, fire and emotion and excitement pulsing. He raises his fist with Jean and all the other people around him.

" _IT IS TIME_!"

But a new voice, harsh and metallic, interjects:

"It is time for you to stop!"

Without even turning to see, Grantaire knows. The instincts of the  _gamins_  have not left him, and he is all too aware of the policemen approaching the rabble with guns in their holsters and sternness on their faces. A small voice in his mind warns him to run, but he cannot. Not while Jean is still standing alone and vulnerable in their midst.

"Boy, get down from there!" the same officer bellows. "You are under arrest for sedition. Come quietly with us and you may yet receive a lighter sentence. Get down from there now!"

"I have done nothing wrong," answers Jean.

But the rest of his reply is drowned out. The police are already shoving through the crowd; a woman shrieks and falls, a man shouts, and suddenly what had been a peaceful gathering is now a raging inferno. People are resisting, and fighting, and danger rings from all around them.

"Hurry! Let's get out of here!" a boy nearby yells into Grantaire's ear, grasping his wrist. But Grantaire shakes free. "Are you out of your mind?"

Grantaire has left him behind, already pushing his way through angry men and panicked women and frightened children. Toward the center, toward the marble fountain.

"Jean!" he screams. "Jean! Get down here! It's not safe!"

He is nearly smothered by a balding man racing past, but when he regains his sight Jean has only stepped down from his place. And now Grantaire can see why. A policeman stands not five feet from him, gun pointed at the older boy's chest. There is nowhere to run, and Jean's smile is of the utmost calm.

" _JEAN -_ "

A loud crack tears through the air.

And time is frozen, transfixed into one trembling moment, as Grantaire sees Jean clutch at his chest and fall back against the fountain.

" _JEAN_!"

He is blind now, blind to the chaos surrounding him, blind to everything save the boy slumped against the marble with crimson blooming over his heart. He doesn't realize he is sobbing until he's reached Jean and pulled him forward and cradled his head in his lap.

"Jean," he chokes out. " _Jean_."

Blue eyes smile faintly up at him.

"Grantaire, don't cry," he whispers. "I'm all right. Be strong... there's a good boy. I'm so glad to have known you."

"Jean, no. Don't say that. Please - "

"I've done my job and I'm happy, my little Grantaire... Stay strong, all right? You'll be just fine. You'll do great things... I know it. I'm proud of you."

"Jean," sobs Grantaire, clutching at the red-stained shirt, willing the blood to disappear even as the older boy goes limp in his arms. "Jean, no,  _Jean_."

He is present two days later at Jean's funeral, and the world is blurred as the one true friend he has ever known is buried.

And all former thoughts of freedom and equality and revolution and change are buried with him.

It is as if something within him has died with Jean, and can never be recovered again. He is no longer fully Grantaire afterward, no longer the same little boy who listened rapt to revolutionary speeches and helped leave controversial flyers around the city. He breaks with the rest of the students who still work in secret to carry on the cause, and takes his own roundabout route to adulthood.

Wandering in and around Paris, meeting the princes of boxing and the kings of dancing and the gods of gambling, he wastes a total of five years, though not without his fair share of empty enjoyment. At some point he decides to return to school, but his sojourn there is not much to his taste. It is there that he earns his first few nicknames - the skeptic, the unbeliever, the satirist.

He remembers first learning to like them. And to wear them as he'd wear any article of clothing, if not comfortably then agreeably. They are tolerable. They are bearable.

But more than anything else he remembers the day, two years ago, when he chances - stumbles, rather - upon the small café near the tavern he frequents. The café where a group called Les Amis de l'ABC often gathers - a group of fellow students he's become silently drawn to from afar.

And one of them in particular, the blond one who sees Grantaire enter and narrows deep blue eyes at him and decides he's not worth paying attention to.

(He still wonders - if he had acted better on that one day, that one day they had first met - if he had bothered to look more proper or speak in a more civilised and respectful manner - would Enjolras have seen him differently afterward? Would things have been closer between them, maybe?

He wonders. He always wonders.)

He doesn't mean to love anyone, he really doesn't. But he never expected to meet someone like Enjolras. It's not his choice, it never is his choice - if it was he'd close his heart off from everything and everyone, including a certain charismatic young man with the look of an angel and the same strong heart as a friend from long ago.

Or maybe, if he had a choice, he'd still stay by Enjolras, still listen to everything he says, still worship the ground he walks on. Still.

He loves Enjolras. Loves him like he's never loved anyone before, with an intensity that goes beyond passion, with a sincerity that goes beyond explanation.

He loves Enjolras.

Not even with Jean has he felt this way - for the boy long ago there had only been a soft affection, a brotherly sentiment. Enjolras is something different altogether - shining and burning like the brightest of stars, so close and yet so far away.

He loves Enjolras.

For him there will never be another man with the same fiery eyes, the same ringing voice, the same angelic face or the same heroic heart, heroic soul. For him there will never be another Enjolras. And that is why he never leaves, no matter how much Enjolras insults him, pushes him away, wounds him to the heart. He cannot.

He loves Enjolras.

And Enjolras - his love, his life, his sole reason for being - is about to throw everything away.

* * *

Before action is taken, a final meeting is held.

That fact is unspoken between them, but they can feel its truth in their bones. Grantaire for one does, and knows that the next time he sees these men will be on the street, rifle in hand, behind a barricade. He knows what is going to happen, and knows what he is going to do.

"The time is near," Enjolras declares, parting the dimness in the room with his words. The candles shine brighter around him as he leans forward with his hands on the table. "All our preparations are done, and we have only to rally the people, and call them to arms. And with their support we will fight."

"Fight!" echoes Marius, vague panic coloring his voice. Grantaire notices he has gone quite pale, and passes him another bottle of wine.

"Yes, Marius, we will fight." Enjolras seems to be reserving any comment with regards to Marius' indecision. "We will fight for a free France, one in which everyone is entitled to the same rights as a citizen. May our flag move forward, and may our actions light the way for future generations."

"Aye," Feuilly joins in. "You speak well, Enjolras."

"May I live long enough to carry out what I say."

And with that utterance Enjolras' face takes on an expression so impassioned that Grantaire's heart hurts when he beholds it. His eyes flash forth blue light, his mouth is set firm. His is the exalted face of Apollo at his chariot, reins in hand, ready to bring the sun to the waiting world.

And Grantaire, looking upon him, knows exactly what he will do himself. He will follow Enjolras.

He is destined to follow, and he knows this, and accepts it.

Because when it comes to Enjolras, that is worth everything.

* * *

_Now_.

He stands not behind the window of a tavern, but behind the cracked top of a table, gun against his shoulder, taking his aim. The same smoke fills the air, punctuated by the same screaming and shouting, but there is no way to avoid it now.

He pulls the trigger and watches a man in red and blue uniform fall, silently, under a cannon.

One more life lost.

Out of the corner of his vision he can see Enjolras in his red coat, red as a sun about to rise, firing from a higher vantage point of the barricade. It is all he needs for reassurance and strength. Even as a bullet comes whistling past, missing Grantaire's shoulder by an inch, he simply shifts aside and ducks down to a safer gap in the broken furniture. And he goes on shooting.

It is for a freer France, he tells himself. A France that he believes in, because he believes in the one man who can lead them to it, and that man is Enjolras.

He is not afraid. He never has been. His blood runs fast and invigorating through his veins, and he feels younger and more alive than he ever has in his life. He remembers the shouting in the crowd at the Place du Château-d'Eau, the speeches both Jean and Enjolras have made, the secret song of his heart as he listened to them, the voice in his soul telling him  _to follow_.

 _To never leave_.

He fires. He rests. He fires again. He sees Feuilly fall, he sees Jehan fall, he sees Bossuet fall. He avenges them with a blade and a rifle. He almost cannot feel his grief, as it has become so much a part of him that he lives and breathes it.

But he keeps moving forward.

And Enjolras, he knows without having to check, is doing the same.

* * *

The rooms of the tavern are dark. But he knows his way by instinct, knows where Enjolras is by heart. The collapsed stairs cannot stop him; he leaps them two at a time, then three.

The ten members of the National Guard are there around him when he arrives. But he has no eyes for them, only for the man in the red coat, with nary a wound on him, standing at the other end of the room alone and meeting his gaze with eyes the color of the sky.

 _Go, Grantaire, you fool_ , he is saying, without scorn at all.

And Grantaire knows what he is going to do.

" _Vive la République_!" he declares, and shoves his way through the men towards Enjolras.

The look the blond revolutionary gives him is worth it all.

"Finish both of us at one blow," he tells the guards. But to Enjolras he asks the one question that has always been with him, in one form or another, the question he has wanted to utter for so long:

"Do you permit it?"

Perhaps Enjolras doesn't know what he means. Perhaps Enjolras still doesn't understand that Grantaire, in asking this, is tearing down all the walls he has ever built, laying bare his heart for him, expressing everything he has ever felt in a mere four words. But all at once it doesn't matter.

Because the smile Enjolras is giving him now is one of sincere gratitude, and the hand he extends to Grantaire is one of sincere friendship.

_I permit it._

It is all Grantaire could ever want, and more.

So he takes Enjolras' hand, and he returns the smile with one of his own ( _I follow you_ ), and they stand tall and unafraid before the wall of muskets, shining like instruments of the divine.

And when they fall, they fall together.


End file.
